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The Balfour Library

The Balfour Library

The Balfour Library is one of the UK’s leading museum research and teaching libraries for the study of anthropology, archaeology and world music, holding around 20,000 books, 12,000 pamphlets and 300 journal titles.

Opening Hours

Term-time Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm (last admission 4.30pm)

Vacation Monday to Friday 9am to 12.30pm and 2pm to 4pm

Closed August and around 10 days at Christmas and Easter; restricted hours on May Bank Holidays. Please contact librarian or see library information for exact dates.

The Balfour library can be accessed from the South Entrance of the Museum - Robinson Close.

Admission and Borrowing Policy

The following Oxford University members have borrowing rights: academic staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and School of Archaeology; Human Sciences undergraduates. Other current University members may be given borrowing rights, and external readers admitted for reference only use, at the discretion of the Librarian.

Holdings and Services

The library holds about 20,000 books 12,000 pamphlets (not for loan) and 300 journal titles (not for loan), of which about 150 are current, on the subject of Archaeology and Anthropology, especially material on Culture including Art and Traditional Music.

Services: Photocopier, microfiche, access to OLIS (Oxford Libraries Information Services), to which it contributes bibliographic records, available on Ethernet. Please note we are unable to offer inter-library loans or copying at this time.